Faerie Stompy Top 8 @ Meandeck Open, COlumbus, OH

Ran the following list to a 4-1-1 finish yesterday and a prize split in the top 8 single-elim:

4 Sea Drake
4 Trinket Mage
4 Weatherseed Faeries (metagame call - lots of zoo and goblins running around, and all of the thresh lists were tempo, canadian, and/or red splash- these slots were originaly 1 mulldrifter, 3 silkbind faerie)
4 Sower of Temptation
3 Mulldrifter

4 Sword of Fire and Ice
4 Chalice of the void
4 Force of Will
1 Engineered Explosives

4 Mox Diamond
1 Seat of the Synod
1 Vault of Whispers
1 Academy Ruins
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
13 Island

SB:
3 Silent arbiter
3 Misdirection
2 Engineered Explosives
3 Relic of Progenitus
1 Tormod's Crypt
3 Pithing Needle

Round 1 vs Tom with Zoo (thoctars, no knights)

He wins the die roll and leads with a T1 ape. I make a chalice at 1 with tomb and pass, he makes a pridemage and swings 3, I make a sofi with tomb and pass. He makes a woolly thoctar and passes. I make a sea drake, return island and tomb, play tomb, equip, and pass. He untaps, nukes my chalice with pridemage, and paths my drake. I take a bunch of damage from ape and woolly, and my hand full of lands and I head to game two. (I did 8 damage to myself with tomb this game, as I drew nothing but lands but had to keep the T1 chalice, t3 equipped drake hand... pridemage and a bad draw conspired to make this a very depressing game 1)

Boards: -4 sower -3 mulldrifter -1 sea drake, +3 silent arbiter +3 misdirection +2 EE

I lead with a trinket mage, and he makes a 2/2 wild nacatl, then bolts me the following turn in response to a chalice at one, but only has a horizon canopy, thus the kitten stares at my mage until he drops a pridemage to answer my sword. (still on only two lands, however) The kitten swings for 3, and I make a second mage fetching EE, and equip the first. He is still stuck on canopy and tiaga, and makes a sylvan library. (I presume he didn't notice I could make more than just blue mana with mox diamond) I EE for two and blow it before he can pridemage my artifacts, and a mage carries a SoFI into the red zone to find me a chalice at two. I put EE back on top of my library with ruins, and am ready to answer anything at this point. We go to game 3.

We both make lands turn one, and his turn two he makes a pridemage. I draw and drop a mox diamond, play a second land, play weatherseed faerie in lieu of the mage I had planned on playing. I hold back the mage for a misdirection in hand, swing with faerie, and play a silent arbiter to hold the fort. He makes a grim lavanmancer and a goyf, but I have a sword to stick on my faerie on offense while arbiter plays D. He swings in with goyf a few times 'threatening' with lavamancer pings, witch my arbiter has protection from, so I call his bluff each time. Eventually, he starts sending burn and pings to my dome, but with me at 5 and only two cards in his grave, I misdirect his bolt at his lavamancer to allow my Faerie with SoFI to brng home the W

Matches 1-0, Games 2-1.
Round 2 vs Matt (Kojiro) with 4c loam homebrew

This game went much like my first against zoo, where I kept a 3 land, 1 mox hand, and drew like shit. My Chalcie for one didn't affect his deck as much as I had hoped for, as I've not know Matt to play a deck without thoughteize, swords, and brainstorm. He has two goyfs and a knight, I have sower, SoFI and drake, he has removal (I think I saw deed or pulse this game). I force a DD for 3 and still manage to lose the game as T2 goyf, T3 goyf, T4 Knight races Drake pretty well.

Boards: -4 chalice (I never saw any 1cc spells while he was dredging loam, and having extra deed/pulse targets didn't seem to help, as chalice at 2 only kept him off goyf and his late game) +3 Relic, +1 Pithing needle

Game two I make an early trinket mage (fetching relic), followed by another mage fetching relic, but they eat it to a DD the turn I drop a SOFI before I equip. I have 7 in hand at this point, and recover with a weatherseed faerie - it nearly goes the distance before it eats it to a bruning-wished edict. I make a drake, return double land and island, play double land, make trinket mage fetching mox diamond, and pitch island to mox to play my weatherseed faeries, and have mana open for equips next turn should he DD. I think he either forgets faeries have pro-red, or forgot that I made a second mox to equip my SoFI wth, but he loams, makes a crusher, and DDs for some omscene number. I bin everything but my faeries, Sword, and two mox, and note that his life is at five. He extends the hand and we go to game three. (I did see swords and a thoughtseize this game, so I board -1 relic, +1 chalice, as the thoughtseize was wishable and I only saw one swords in all the dredging)

We both mull to six, but Matt accidentally draws seven, and puts the last back. If he were not a friend, never would I have let this fly, but I allow it. He plays no land and passes the turn, at which I raise an eyebrow, wondering if he would have kept should he have not know the top card. I make a city and a mox, weatherseed faerie. He draws, wastes, and passes. I play an island (last land in hand) and swing 2. He draws, pitches a second waste to mox diamond, and makes a maxe of ith. (this is the sketchy part, as I had yet to see a maze from him, and a maze, two waste hand is much more appealing than a wastex2 hand... and he would have played the maze T1 rather than missing a land drop had he opened with it. I can understand not signaling a waste, as it would incorage me to just play island, pitch city to mox, go. I highly suspect maze was the top card of his deck, and it literally won him this match) I don't see additional lands for a while, and he slowly sets up a loam engine. I eventually get land, and play a drake to accompany the faerie, but I'm still only swinging 2 a turn due to his maze. He DDs, and I have a sword for the faerie, and see all four of my forces, but only one flyer, which would have killed him thrice over had it not been for that pesky maze and their meddling pup named scooby doo. Also never saw a needle or a mae to find a needle that game. Misty, but it could have been worse - this could have been a unfair loss to someone I didn't know.

Matches 1-1, Games 3-3.
Round 3 vs Steven with Merfolk

He leads with vial, and I make a city and a mox for trinket mage, fetching EE. I then make a sword, and set EE at one. He finds a lord, but no boucne spells. I EE a cursecatcher and his vial, and SoFI his lord. In his defense, if he had dazed/forced my mage, I would have had to race his vial and more gys with a turn slower faerie.

Boards: -4 chalice -4 faeries, +2 EE +3 Pithing needle, +3 Silent Arbiter

Game two is another train wreck for him, as I have a god-draw. I force his first turn vial, and make a first turn sea drake. He makes a third turn cold-eyes selkie, which I sower. He lands a jitte the turn before I kill him, but I have a flying army, and drew two cards off his selkie, and it's not nearly enough to keep him alive.

Matches 2-1, Games 5-3.
Round 4 vs Jacob B (teammate) with UG Countertop (coatls, predators, sowers, and 2 shackles main)

Game one he plays top, go, I resolve a chalice at one, and he loses heart. I land a trinket mage, chalice at two, and sower a goyf. He makes a trygon as a blocker to stay alive, but I have a SoFI for the goyf to wield while killing it's maker.

Boards: -4 weatherseed faeries, +1 EE, +3 needle

He leads with island, go, I needle top. He makes a second Island, and the loneliest counterbalance ever. I make a mage fetching another needle, and resolve a chalice at 2. He forces the needle I fetched (which would have named shackles), and mage begins the beatdown. He makes a coatl, and then the insanity begins. I make a drake. He sowers drake, I sower his Coatl. He makes a predator (with not enough mana for shackles), I swing with his coatl, and he chumps with my drake. I sower his predator, and make a second drake, which he sowers. There were four sowers on the board at one point, and the game was stalled. He was on five mana with two propagandas and a shackles, with two untapped to use shackles. I hoped to all hopes that the complicated game state would keep him from realizing shackles was more productive than sower here. (while sowering a sower won't return your stolen creature as sower is still in play, burgling MY sowers with his shackles and chumping with them would have gotten him back his coatl and predator) I take a risk and pay fur to swing with his coatl into his untapped shackles, and he chumps with his sower! (as the drake sower had stolen already bit it) Epic win! I repeat this the following turn, and after disposing of his sowers, I decide to stop milking my luck, and use the EE I had recently drawn at 3 (go mox diamonds!) and destroy his two propagandas, shackles, and the two creatures I had burgled, allowing me to swing with both sowers without the propaganda effect. Jacob scoops them up and I tell him about the shackles. He's pretty upset about his misplay, but either way it worded out, at least one of us is in the running for top8 after the round. He DID fair much better than an everage thresh deck, considering both games were played with chalices set at one AND two!

Matches 3-1, Games 7-3.
Round 5 vs Jeremy with red splash ANT

He is on the play and makes a delta. I make a chalice at one to which he responds with mystical tutor for infernal. At this, I feel it safe to run out the other chalice in my hand at 0. I make a faerie and a drake, and then chalice at 2. We're off to game 2.

Boards: -4 sower +3 misdirection, +1 Needle.
In my UB build, I play 4 top, and 4 duress MD, so I figure additional pseudo-disruption is better than a 4 mana wind drake, and needle can be fetched to neuter top, while I left EE in to clean up and LEDs that were lain turn one to evade my chalices. (obv popping EE@0 before I drop chalices)

Game two he mulls to six, and leads with land, thoughtseize and I pump the first and exile a mulldrifter to misdirect it back at him. He reveals Dark Rit, rite of flame, LED, AdNaues, and pitches the rite, then plays the LED. I make a Chalice at 1, Drake, Mage for chalice at 2.

Matches 4-1, Games 9-3.
Round 6 vs RRRRRRRRATZEL with Burn

We ID into the top8, but I feel the match is in my favor, despite the absence of jitte in the 75.

The top8 all agree to a prize split and we head over to Mongolian barbecue to celebrate.

Ending record: Matches 4-1-0, Games 9-3.

Props:

Audible from Goblins to FS with 4 MD weatherseed faeries. They were golden vs aggro loam and zoo, and would have been great against any of the other red decks in the room. Against combo, they had an extra power over silkbind. I would have appreciated silkbind's tap ability vs merfolk and counter-top, but I feel I have better matchups against blue decks than against red decks, so while I will likely default to 3 silkbind, 4th drifter, I think the weatherseeds are fine cards to keep with you should you ever need to make such a meta call.

Misdirection - saved my ass against burn, beating against combo's discard effects.

Silent arbiter - saying 'no' to aggro decks since 2003

SoFI

Mox Diamond and EE: BFFs 4evR

Mark (Morbid) for rocking the only landstill deck at the tournament... without disks :cry:

My team for (mostly) having positive records. (Jacob B went 4-2, Ruebs went 4-2, Steven went 4-2, and Mark (Morbid)went 2-2-2.... Harrison (arcoundravager2) went 1-2-3)

RRRRRRRRATZEL for top8ing with burn and Gus (yawg07) for top8ing with white weenie. I think there was all of 2 non-enchantress combo decks in the tournament.

Everyone at the tournament for coming out - it was a blast.

Cash tournaments!

BDs!

Slops:

Maze of ith - for realzies, fuck that card.

The THREATENER for no-showing.

FOUR enchantress decks at a 48 (?) man tournament.... seriously???

Congrats on the finish. I'm not convinced on Diamonds (and will likely never be), but EE certainly is a nice boon. Too bad about the Loam match; not seeing any of your 4 Mages or 3 Needles must suck royally. Still, the deck did what it's supposed to.

Are you honestly happy without Jittes though? As you said, it's a red meta and Jitte is fairly good vs. red, doubly so with a pro-red wielder. Though I guess that's the extra space Diamonds take... Ah well. Also, are you sure 4 Mond is right as opposed to e.g. split between Diamonds and Chromes? I'm really iffy about dropping the number of business spells, particularly creatures.


Btw, about time someone had the guts to bust out FS in an US tournament. That hasn't happened in a while, and the metagame could hardly be more favorable. Nice call on Weatherseed too; some ancient tech right there, but with the way the meta is right now, it seems perfect.

EDIT: By the way, would B2B have been the gamebreaker it seems vs. the 4c Loam thingy?

Great audible to the pro red fae's Eric....did not see that coming! would have drafted with some of you guys but I was extemely TILTED due to a 0-1-2 record....maybe next time! who goes 0-1-2 ???? can't fucking believe that...oh well..congrats in the finish

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Originally Posted by Eldariel

Are you honestly happy without Jittes though? As you said, it's a red meta and Jitte is fairly good vs. red, doubly so with a pro-red wielder.

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I'd love to have some number of jittes in the 75 in select metas, but being able to chalice at both 1 and 2 makes the deck stomp so much harder against most of the metagame. chalice at 1 shuts down most removal, chalice at 2 shuts down most DECKS. I remeber playing old school FS with cloud and jittes, and allways hating having CMC2 cards in my deck, as they got spell snared, counterbalanced, and locked out by my own chalices. Cloud did cycle, but that card is just awful in FS imo. EE@2 is also incredible, as is not having to worry about drawing multiple jittes. I may try adding a miser's one-of in the main at some point, though I feel SoLS may be better, and opens up a soft lock post-boards if you run G.E. archmage.

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Originally Posted by Eldariel

Though I guess that's the extra space Diamonds take... Ah well. Also, are you sure 4 Mond is right as opposed to e.g. split between Diamonds and Chromes? I'm really iffy about dropping the number of business spells, particularly creatures.

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I wrote about a three page rant on the percentages pertaining to chome mox vs mox diamond and how a slighly increased threat density in the 75 doesn't make up for having to pitch a threat in hand to chrome mox until turn 10 or so. Mulling in the chome mox build is also less forgiving. Also, when you DO have to raw-dog a sea drake the old-fasioned way, a mox diamond in hand lets you recover tempo by pitching a land whereas a chrome would have sat dead there. Chrome opens up the possibility of playing art lands and esperzoa, but I wasn't fond of it myself, as pridemage already has enough targets without being able to kill our threats right-out.

IMO, there is not a 'right' or 'wrong' as far as chrome/mox D are concerned, it is just preferance and deckbuilding strategy. I personally prefer to mull less, and run fewer creatures in the 60 in order to not pitch said creatures to my mana sources. Runing more creatures also means we have to run worse creatures, and I allready think that Efreet is outdated for the format, and that silkbind needs to untap for just U/W to make it good rather than just a playable, psuedo-removal spell that really only works as a threat if equipped. Having to run 4 more suboptimal creatures... IMO chrome mox does increase the number of threats, but you end up running some you wish you weren't. (like efreet or pestermite vs red decks)

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Originally Posted by Eldariel

EDIT: By the way, would B2B have been the gamebreaker it seems vs. the 4c Loam thingy?

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I've had it in the board previously, but even in my build with more basics, hurting your early game (assuming you have one via double lands) and dropping a 3cc enchant rather than guys or disruption in order to have a better late game against control decks is generally not something FS wants to do. I wouldn't board in B2B against a typical aggo loam deck, and 43 lands and eternal garden aren't popular enough to warrant the inclusion of such a hate card in the SB IMO

Gratz on the finish and finally, someone gets that 18 land is NOT enough for FS! Thank you for helping to demonstrate this. That being said, how did DD kill your SoFI equipped Mage? Ya blew that one, and it looks like that would have won you the game.

I really like your list and your logic behind the choices. Congrats on the finish.

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Originally Posted by Media314r8

I'd love to have some number of jittes in the 75 in select metas, but being able to chalice at both 1 and 2 makes the deck stomp so much harder against most of the metagame. chalice at 1 shuts down most removal, chalice at 2 shuts down most DECKS. I remeber playing old school FS with cloud and jittes, and allways hating having CMC2 cards in my deck, as they got spell snared, counterbalanced, and locked out by my own chalices. Cloud did cycle, but that card is just awful in FS imo. EE@2 is also incredible, as is not having to worry about drawing multiple jittes. I may try adding a miser's one-of in the main at some point, though I feel SoLS may be better, and opens up a soft lock post-boards if you run G.E. archmage.

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Yeah, Jitte is pesky. That said, given how quickly it demolishes Zoo and Merfolk, I like it right now very much. That said, if stuff like Rock and Landstill were to become more popular, I'd really miss SoLS.

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Originally Posted by Media314r8

I've had it in the board previously, but even in my build with more basics, hurting your early game (assuming you have one via double lands) and dropping a 3cc enchant rather than guys or disruption in order to have a better late game against control decks is generally not something FS wants to do. I wouldn't board in B2B against a typical aggo loam deck, and 43 lands and eternal garden aren't popular enough to warrant the inclusion of such a hate card in the SB IMO

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Yeah, it's only really good vs. Landstill, Rock, Stax and the decks you listed. That said, I love having access to it; I just feel the MUs in which it shines are pretty hard otherwise so it helps right where you want the help. But I suppose given a meta like the one yours sounds like, it wouldn't be very helpful.

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Originally Posted by scrumdogg

Gratz on the finish and finally, someone gets that 18 land is NOT enough for FS! Thank you for helping to demonstrate this. That being said, how did DD kill your SoFI equipped Mage? Ya blew that one, and it looks like that would have won you the game.

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I think pretty much everyone uses 19+ non-Mox sources or more presently. But yeah, his built is totally different given that Diamonds don't produce mana on their own. In effect, he makes the decision of which card to "imprint" before the tournament.

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Originally Posted by Eldariel

I think pretty much everyone uses 19+ non-Mox sources or more presently. But yeah, his built is totally different given that Diamonds don't produce mana on their own. In effect, he makes the decision of which card to "imprint" before the tournament.

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And I've long advocated at least 21 'non-Mox' sources but was mostly ignored/patronized. <shrug> whatever, we all choose our own direction with decks, but he articulated two problem with FS that haven't been clearly stated - the need for both mana & colored mana and FoW food without sacrificing threat density in a deck light on actual blue cards. Recovering from getting your mox(es) demolished (or countered or Stifled) has also been an issue at times. His version has the ability to simply make land drops as an alternative (although the land count seemed a bit high). His deck can also recur both lands and artifacts if he finds and keeps an Academy Ruins, which plays nicely with ditching a Seat to a Mox. With only one, however, and no search or recursion it isn't anything to rely upon.

I also can't imagine playing the deck without Jitte, especially if Merfolk is a presence (as it is here). And the debate concerning SoFI/SOLAS will never be resolved, especially since not only are different metas so divergent, people use them in different ways. That being said, red removal should be used in response to equipping and most creatures aren't red, leaving the essential question - is it more important to recur my small(ish) number of actual threats or to accelerate damage? Each player needs to answer that for himself.

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Originally Posted by scrumdogg

That being said, red removal should be used in response to equipping and most creatures aren't red, leaving the essential question - is it more important to recur my small(ish) number of actual threats or to accelerate damage? Each player needs to answer that for himself.

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This has been my issue with SoFI for very long. As you know in New England we have a significant portion of Merfolk and Zoo. My though has always been that Zoo will remove your creature before you are able to equip SoFI and the protection from blue is all but useless in the Merfolk match as they either have island walk or you fly over.

Assumptions aside I found it far more useful to run 4 Weatherseed Faeries in my sideboard and run SoLS and Jitte main. SoLS helps with my Survival/Landstill/Rock/Zoo match up as well as helping to offset Ancient Tomb damage. Recurring Mulldrifter is also stupid good.

Either way interesting take on the deck Media, good work.

Im a playing and did mention long time ago to use Diamonds over Chrome. Its so much better.

Also Im playing 5C with Gemstone Mines and Magus of the Moon main. Its debatable if Magus is that strong nowadays, but 5C gives you a lot more SB Options (Plague for Example)

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Originally Posted by scrumdogg

Gratz on the finish and finally, someone gets that 18 land is NOT enough for FS! Thank you for helping to demonstrate this. That being said, how did DD kill your SoFI equipped Mage? Ya blew that one, and it looks like that would have won you the game.

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I never resolved a dreams when he had an equipped Mage. There was a turn in which he resolved another threat instead of equipping and I promptly Dreamsed after. It was in my grip from the first turn and I was just waiting for an opening. The only situation I would have cast dreams if he had SoFI is if I had Tabernacle in play. Eric, maybe you can chime in here.

Good report and awesome deck, Eric. Congrats on your top 8, and thanks for being a cool dude with the whole mulligan thing. If it's any consolation, I swear on a stack of 40 dual lands that I have no idea what the 7th card was, and it in no way affected whether or not I kept that hand. All I know is that it had Wasteland and Maze, and that was enough to convince me that I had enough time to find lands/loam. The notes for both of us on this match sound so much worse than it actually was :-p

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Originally Posted by scrumdogg

That being said, how did DD kill your SoFI equipped Mage? Ya blew that one, and it looks like that would have won you the game.

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I agree with Kojiro on this one. I probably had two mages out and was swinging four rather than an equppied mage swinging for four + shocking something, as my notes just show the -4 life change, but nothing in his deck aside from witness dies to the shock from SoFI, so It was likely just two mages swinging as the life from an equppied mage would have been -6 each turn. I suspect I had out three lands, as I remeber Matt asking 'how many in hand?' alot, so by not laying more lands and equipping, I was risking DD on an unequipped mage rather than deed on the board. He likely DD'd after I dropped a sword with two mages and three lands out. Sorry for the mis-report there, the games went long and swung back and forth. Re-reading and checking logic FTW.